I posted this in other places so I understand if a moderator wants to take it down. I'm just looking for some of the really experience people around here to tell me why this is a bad idea.

I’ve been experimenting with the idea the last few weeks and I suspect that it won’t work because the idea is fairly simple and solves several problems, but I've never seen it done before (but it may have). I call it Fusion Clothing because it isn’t Hybrid.

1. The clothing figure is 100% conforming.

1. The clothing figure is 100% dynamic.

1. The clothing can be conformed, posed and then 5 or 10 frames can be run over it in the cloth room to smooth it out.

I suspect this won’t work because it solves a lot of problems and it is fairly simple. I’ve made a top and split skit with this in mind and have been testing them. It seems to work perfectly about 99% of the time. I’ve seen some very strange problems with vertices falling toward the floor or getting stuck deep in the figure in some poses. Most of the time, I pose the conformed figure so I get some poke-through and then run it through the cloth room. This quickly pulls the poke-through out and it looks perfect. But sometimes a single vertice gets stuck inside or ends up falling toward the floor.

I am posting this here in the hope that some of you really high level modelers can tell me why this won’t work or why the vertices act up in some cases.

Thank you in advance for any input you can give me.

Your problem is i suspect because the grouping.

Give me 10 minutes to come back. I have to sort my words how to explain you.

The top is grouped 100% as chest. The skirt is grouped 100% as hip.

When you enter the cloth room, Poser make automaticly his own groups.

This means, he distribute by his own, from the conf. dress all the groups.

He take the body parts as groups.

Poser put on the border where the groups meet choreograped group.

That the other groups follow each other.

When you clothify many groups Poser mess up in this case often.

But why? Never find out.

I don't know if this gives any sense to you what I write...  but I don't know how to explain better .

Thank you Ladonna. That helps. I figured there must be something like that happening.

Glad I could help you :)

If you have a solution I would be courios about :)

DAZ's conforming MFD works rather well in the cloth room.

Dynamic cloth must be completely welded. The parts that aren't have to have a line of vertices constrained to another figure in order not to come apart.

Laurie

LaurieA ... That's true, but there is no reason for conforming cloths not to be welded. In the clothing I'm working on now, the top is all chest and the skirt is all hip. They are fully welded and work perfectly as conforming clothing and as Dynamic clothing. I have the constrain group marked and the soft decorated group marked which doesn't seem to bother the conforming action. To use them as dynamic, all you have to do is take them into the cloth room and go for it. It just seems that there must be something I'm missing.

Thanks CaptainMARK. That's good to know. The only reason I brought this up is that it would solve so many problems. If there is a morph missing in the clothes that is used in the V4 figure you have them on, you get poke-through or odd fitting clothes. Running it through the cloth room for 5 or 10 frames would fix that. When you develop the clothing you only need one figure. You don’t need a figure and a prop. And the list goes on.

ToxicWolf. I agree with you. The basic idea is very good. Could safe some frustrating time for end-user and vendor /content creator.

@ToxicWolf

IMO this is just a good idea, with respect to the notion that dynamic cloth should be well welded (like real cloth, if you're wearing rags, it'll show) AND be single sided (otherwise one side can poke through the other) AND mesh densities and structures should have been taken care of. Each piece should pass the hang-test: just hang the piece at two points (choreographed) for a few seconds (150 frames) and if it doesn't fall apart, it works.

Generally, it's the way I work: using conform and morph to get the basic settings done and use dynamics for the fine details later on. Might still be hundreds of frames though, 10 frames is just 0.33 second. Depends on the cloth properties (panel 4). Nice folds in thick velvet gowns take more time.

I'm not sure I understand Ladonna's remarks. You can clothify mesh-groups that contain vertices, usually the "suit" does not but its underlying "pants" and "jacket" subgroups do. Then you'll have to clothify them seperately, in one sim or in different ones, depends on the kind of interaction you want. I've never seen Poser doeing anything with the choreographed etc groups itself. I do see modern clothing having such groups by themselves, which means they are dynamized already.

The build-in constrained or choreographed groups do not affect the interaction of the clothified objects in a sim though, they just stitch the cloth pieces either to the figure-vertices (constrain) or make the cloth pieces follow their own path, which may be dictated by the figure as well when the pieces are "conformed to" (choreographed).

I'm happy to elaborate on this.

aRtBee that's great input. There may be a way to put this together so that it just works and we end up with clothing that looks better than just conforming and is quicker and easier than just dynamic.

Getting complex folds would take a lot more sim frames, but if you have something simple (like my short split skirt and little top) then all you need to do after conforming and posing the figure is "soften" it up a little to get a good result. That was my idea behind a 5 to 10 frame sim.

There are people out there that have never even been in the cloth room that might just give this a try if all they need is a few frames. It's also nice for people with slower machines. By having the initial work done by conforming and posing it's kind of like you are starting with 90% of the work already done and all you need to do is finish it off.

Love to hear more.

well the easiest method if you must do this is to export the conformed posed item, reimport welded and then drape that

aside from that - Steve over at PoserWorld made some hybrid items a while ago. They were mainly a conforing item, but the skirt part would then be clothified and draped.

Lyrra

Quote - well the easiest method if you must do this is to export the conformed posed item, reimport welded and then drape that

That would indeed be the way to proceed. The conformed mesh would of course have some un-natural stretch but that may be acceptable. 

The process could be automated in an add-n, somewhat like Snarly's SubD add-on. The script generates the object mesh copy, hides the conformer, and sets up the cloth drape. If the lothing has complex shaders those would have to be transferred too. 

A second phase of the add-on would be the deletion of the simulation, removal of the object, and un-hiding the conformer.

Okay ... I'm going to build a clothing figure from scratch to test this. I think that is better than trying to use something already built. As soon as it is ready for download and testing I’ll post something in the poser forum for those of you interested in running it through its paces. This may take some time since I’m working on other models, but I will get it done.

Thanks for all your input.

lately I've been exporting conforming clothing .obj with the "weld" choice checked, then reimporting with it checked....

but the item falls apart when clothified and simmed. seams separate.

The last one I tried was the V4 basicwear sport top.

::::: Opera :::::

when a single piece of clothing that is supposed to be one thing in real life is neatly stitched (welded) together, there is no reason to do any export - import - obj - whatever process. It should just work. If it doesn't, the thing contains flaws in the obj structure: misplaced vertices, missing edges, whatever. Some dresses for instance actually exist of various seperate parts with no common verts or edges connecting them. The parts are just intersecting geometrically, but they make not one singular mesh. But because all those parts conform neatly, you will never notice. Until you throw them into cloth room. Then they'll fall apart.

When the parts have some vertices in about the same positions, welding might do the repair job. Sometimes you need all the tricks you can think of. Sometimes you have to reconstruct the obj in a 3D mesh editor. There is no single treatment for all issues. You might need to pick the mesh apart to see what's wrong. generally, the parts were not stitched together.

But again, if the mesh is good, then a conforming piece can get clothified without any further process.

let's assume your case, that the item consists of various parts coincidentally appearing to "touch" or be welded, but they are actually just separate. [can you have one model with 3 different untouching parts like that?]

if you take the mesh into a mesh editor and make it all "one" what happens to the grouping that the texture maps need?

the image shows the Benefit Gala Gown, which comes as one mesh for the dress itself, and two trims (one over the chest and one over the back). When clothified, the trims will come off.

The solution to this particular case is to select the trims into the soft decorated groups

Note: in this dress the dress and trims together are chopped into hip, adbomen etc groups and are clothified accordingly. The trims (in portions, for hip, abdomen etc) are seperate as material groups. So the hip part of the dress is clothified and get the hip-parts of the trims in its soft decorated groups, and so on.

Another example to work on: the Hooded Cloak. It comes with a Fastener that is not connected mesh-wise and will come off when clothified. The solution there is to turn the fastener into a prop and collide the hood to it.

Belt-loopt to pants are well known, soft-decorating does the job again in most cases.

Answer to question 2) like stitching a button to a jacket with a thread, you only need an edge between two vertices of the two pieces. This might introduce a few extra polys, I don't know what that does to the material mapping, I've never looked into that. But all existing verts and polys can stay where they are, and the new ones don't need a material anyway I guess. Put them in a seperate material group or so, and assign it full transparency. Don't make them invisible though, as cloth room only deals with visible items. You can make them 100% transpaent instead, cloth room ignores material / texture properties.

I try to avoid 3D editors for the moment. Perhaps just sub-dividing and welding might do in cases.

aRtBee thanks,

I am now having success with the V4 basic wear, by pulling the trim and rings (on bikini bottom) into the soft decorated group, through the "materials" pull down.

you have been very helpful.

::::: Opera :::::

Thank you aRtBee. That is really cool stuff.